


granting innocence

by vulcanbabe



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Five Year Mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 09:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11288346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcanbabe/pseuds/vulcanbabe
Summary: this life they've built for themselves is good.  they have a house,  now,  with a real oven and a living room and a swimming pool.  there's enough room for joanna and david to grow,  and there's a ring on jim's left hand,  and he never dreamed that he'd have this in a million years but now he does,  and it's enough.  it's finally enough,  for both of them.  until it isn't.  until it's gone.or: the grey's inspired fic no one wanted but we all needed.





	granting innocence

**Author's Note:**

> thx to shonda rhimes for this dialogue and plot xoxox stop killing my faves

it’s going to be a good day, jim’s decided. it’s going to be a good day, because mccoy kisses him on the cheek before he leaves, because for once jo holds his hand as they cross the street instead of darting out into oncoming traffic, because david slept through the night, because of all of that, because of none of that. because his husband — his husband, now! — is starfleet’s greatest general surgeon ( if jim doesn’t say so himself, which, well, he does, often and loudly, ignoring any and all of mccoy’s sighs and grumbles in response. ) because his best friend is lightyears away, but at least spock’s alive, and five years out _there_ have taught him that being alive is everything. because jim’s seen more of the universe than most will ever, and because, even so, the most beautiful things he’s ever seen are the ones that wake him up at four in the morning because they need a glass of water or need their diaper changed. because even if mccoy is flying halfway across the planet tonight, he’ll be home by tuesday, promised he’d be back before jim knew it, and once he is, it’ll be them again, their little family of four, happy, hopeful, sure of the future.

“it’s going to be a good day,” jim announces, diaper bag slung over one arm, david held carefully in his other, jo bounding out the door in front of him even as he begs her to slow down. she may have leonard’s eyes and jocelyn’s nose, but that boundless energy? it’s all jim’s.

( “are you sure you didn’t steal some of my DNA and sneak back in time, bones? because there’s no way she got _that_ from either of you.” he gets an elbow in the ribs for that. gets to clean up the paint she dumped all over the couch, too. “it’s nature _and_ nurture, jim,” mccoy grumbles, and jim’s pretty sure he hears a _god help me_ tacked onto the end there. jim just laughs. )

in the midst of the chaos that is wrangling jo, balancing david, and locking the door behind him, jim’s communicator chirps. he doesn’t hear it. and so they’re off, kirk-mccoys in all their glory, even if the latter half of that hyphen has informed jim several times, lacking no detail in describing the process whatsoever, that he’d rather lose both his hands than be called any variation of _doctor kirk._

( jim laughs, every time, then threatens to tell joss he’s thinking about changing jo’s name. mccoy looks scared, after that. five years lost in the blackness of space has taught him to sense danger from a hundred miles away — and joss and jim together scare him more than any hostile planet ever could. )

* * *

jim’s late getting out of the academy. some command track kid fails a routine sim, takes it really hard, and jim ends up recounting the tale of how he almost got himself kicked out of starfleet for what feels like the thousandth time since he started teaching part-time here. if only spock could see him now. he doubts the vulcan’d believe it — jim kirk, learn from his mistakes? use them as a teaching opportunity? but, he supposes, spock deserves more credit than that — as much as he’s always been able to point out jim’s flaws with painful clarity, he’s also always been able to see beyond them. jim huffs a laugh at the memory of their first meeting, gets a confused look from the cadet, then pats them on the back and excuses himself to one of the astrophysics labs, where he finds one of his children playing with something that looks suspiciously like — well, like it’d get him banned from parenting completely, if mccoy catches wind of it.

“i owe you one,” jim grins, scooping jo up and setting her on his shoulders before she can do too much damage with the phaser. really, he’s more worried about the lab than jo.

“you owe me more than that,” carol scoffs, but jim can tell that she’s reluctant to let david go. he knows the feeling damn well himself. “it’s a model, by the way. she can have it. where’s leonard?”

“i knew that. he’s in paris. secret doctor stuff. you know.” he shrugs, as if she does, but jim’s pretty sure he’s never seen someone roll their eyes at him so hard, _counting_ the time he accidentally tracked an acid-spewing worm into medical.

“he’s at the ninety-seventh annual congress on interspecies drug design.”

well, shit. by the time carol’s done explaining the paper mccoy’ll be presenting on in great detail, jim’s accepted that he deserves this. when she’s finished, he kisses her on the cheek, tells her he’s in awe, as always, and that if she likes the kids so much she can have them on weekends, because he hasn’t been on a real date in three months, thank you very much. he also starts to thank her for actually helping him make sense of all that medical terminology, but is interrupted by an offended jo tugging at his hair. jim laughs, promising her he wouldn’t trade her for the world—or for a date with her dad—as he ducks under the doorframe and goes to load the kids in the car. as he drives away, he thinks that they’ll be damn lucky if david takes more after her and mccoy than he does him.

* * *

before he starts on dinner, jim messages mccoy, asks if his flight landed alright, then hands jo his phone before she can inform him that putting a frozen pizza in the oven doesn’t count as cooking dinner. _whatever._ it’s not out of a replicator, is what it is, but jo’s too busy playing games to have that argument out with him. in the process of planning out his argument with a twelve year old—when did this become his life?—jim forgets about the message, figures jo’ll let him know when her dad texts. she doesn’t, and jim ends up too busy scrubbing pizza sauce out of her favorite shirt to remember to ask.

by eight o’clock, they’re piled on the couch watching what jim is planning on _swearing_ to his husband is educational, just as soon as mccoy, you know, actually fucking calls him. _wait, shit._ it might help if jim messaged him back, let him know that he and the kids are in for the night — except, when he checks, there’s no message. not from leonard, anyways. he sends a screencap of his unanswered message to spock, captioned with a _:/_. it’s teasing, really, a joke playing on spock’s initial dislike of the man, and spock sees through it in a heartbeat. he answers two minutes later, despite the time difference. _it is likely his transport was delayed or that he depleted the batteries on both his padd and communicator._ jim sighs, pulls the kids closer, then calls len again.

by nine o’clock, he’s called the shuttle station. twice. has the news on in the background. checks the net to make sure every flight from san francisco to paris made it in. then, he checks every flight from san francisco to anywhere. he puts his padd down, after that, but it’s back in his hands a minute later, and he’s checking flight records of every shuttle leaving the whole damned continent. there’s nothing of concern to note, but it doesn’t make him feel any less sick.

by ten o’clock, he knows something is wrong. knows it deep in his chest. something’s more wrong than his husband forgetting to call. he and bones have been out of contact before, for longer than fifteen hours, and he’s never felt like _this_ before. he’s never felt like he’s been knocked out of this plane of reality, like he’s been on the verge of passing out from holding his breath for the past two hours.

all jim can do is sit on the couch and stare at the news and hold his communicator so tight it threatens to snap.

* * *

when the living room lights up with the red and blue of police sirens filtering in through curtained window, jim wishes he could say he was surprised, that he was expecting anything else. there’s a knock on the door. he sets the communicator down, knows that it won’t ring tonight, then goes to open the door. even as he _knows_ , he prays to every god they’ve ever come across that he’s wrong. he has to be wrong.

jim kirk has lost everything too many times to count. he lost his father, lost his mother, from that. lost his brother, his family. lost any place he could call home. lost a fight. lost a dare. lost pike. lost his ship, his crew, his life.

he’d go through all that every day for the rest of eternity if it’d mean mccoy was standing on that other side of that door. drunk, maybe, angry about missing his flight, ended up punching someone in a bar. “i’m sorry, officer,” jim’d smile, “it’s been a long week. for both of us.” or reckless driving, maybe. pushing 100 in a 40. “i’m sorry, officer.” he’d flash those famous blue eyes. “he was worried, our daughter called him crying — he’s a doctor, he sees things, thought he might’ve needed to get home in a hurry.”

but bones isn’t either of those people. jim knows that.

so he opens the door. there are two men standing outside. neither of them are bones. they were never going to be. the universe has never been kind enough to jim kirk for that to have happened. he has felt the enterprise’s shields give way, has felt her plummet towards the atmosphere of the planet below, has been seconds away from burning away during reentry — and yet he has never felt fear like this.

jim realizes that one of the officers is talking.

“is this the home of leonard mccoy?”

“he’s my husband,” he says, as if that’ll make this go away. as if that’ll make someone, somewhere, realize that they’ve made a mistake.

“i’m afraid there’s been an accident.” the man sounds sorry. jim knows that tone of voice, has had this conversation too many times, from the other side. “ could you come with us, please?”

jim stares. he wants to laugh. this isn’t real. this is some fucked up joke, a bad dream, maybe.

“are you — okay?”

dread fills his limbs like sand, weighing him down. all he manages to say in the end is, “my kids. “

* * *

the waiting room is lifeless. he won’t remember what color the chairs is, later, or what the cops’ names are, but he’ll remember the stillness in the air, the way the walls seem to close in. he clutches the stroller with one hand, jo with the other. they haven’t told him how bad it is, yet. he knows what that means. knows what it means when they wait to let the doctor explain.

(“how do you do it?” jim asks. “do what?” len murmurs, tapping his padd. “tell someone their entire life just changed. tell them they’re dying, or that someone they love is. _did_. “ “kindly,” len says, and leaves it there. )

a social worker walks up to him. she’s holding a bright yellow balloon. it’s jo’s favorite color, and it’s always pissed len off. she takes the stroller, leads jo away, and a nurse puts a hand on jim’s arm.

( “—corrupting my damn daughter,” len mutters, and jim hums happily, helping jo glue a piece to the model of the enterprise he just bought her. later, len kisses his forehead, mumbles “our daughter.” )

the lights are too bright and too dim at the same time. jim sees everything, takes nothing in. there are doctors behind him, talking to him, talking at him.

( “you passed out,” mccoy growls, and before jim can argue, “in my operating room.” oh. fuck. jim makes a face, but he’s still not given a chance to defend himself—he was _worried_ about spock!—mccoy is kissing the fight right out of him. )

“how did it happen?” it’s the first thing jim’s said since getting here. he feels like there’s fluid in his lungs.

“we don’t have all the details, yet,” one of them says, hesitating. “so far, we know that there was an accident. he stopped to help. he saved five people’s lives today.”

“of course he did.” it’s not bitter, not angry. jim’s always known it would end this way: mccoy, giving up himself for someone else.

they don’t tell him about the semi-truck that smashed into his car until later. they don’t ever tell him mccoy was about to drive away.

“mr. kirk, i can’t — we can’t tell you how sorry we are — i am so sorry for your loss. dr. mccoy was — a tremendous surgeon. tremendously gifted. it — was an honor.”

jim turns around.

“get out.”

they do. he’s not sure being alone is any better. now it’s just him and len, but, then, he’s not even sure this is len anymore. he’s hooked up to more tubes and machines than jim knew were still in use. there’s dried blood everywhere, _everywhere_. jim **kicks** the chair he’s standing next to, sends it sliding into the wall, doesn’t realize he’s crying until he scrubs a hand across his face and pulls it away wet.

“damn it, bones,“ he says, and he hates that this is what they’ve come to, hates that he’s called him that for so long, hates that he’s not going to get to ever again. bones. it’s always been a way to not say things out loud, to promise that they know each other’s souls, anyways, without words, that they’ve known since the very moment leonard sat down next to him on that damn shuttle and opened his heart and his life to jim kirk without ever knowing that that was what he was doing. jim has to say it, now. has to call him that, but has to say all the things they’ve never needed to, too. he has to, and mccoy’s up and left him to do it on his own. “you bastard.“

* * *

jo is asleep on jim’s lap when a doctor finally sits down next to them. he’s running his fingers through her hair, over and over and over again. he thinks he’s putting more tangles in it than it started with.

“you have options,” she starts, and just like that the numbness that’s settled over jim is replaced by overwhelming nausea. he closes his eyes, grits his teeth, prays this isn’t going where he thinks it’s going, even though he’s seen leonard, even though he _knows._ “mr. kirk?”

he opens his eyes. runs his fingers through jo’s hair again. “jim.”

“jim.” she nods, but doesn’t smile. he’s grateful for that.

the rest of the conversation is a blur. all he knows is that she gives him his options, but doesn’t really give him any options. either they keep mccoy on life support. or they don’t.

he might wake up. people wake up. sometimes they wake up for no reason. jim woke up, but it wasn’t for no reason. len brought him back. did that for him.

so jim has to do this, for him.

he signs his name on the dotted line. he signs len’s life away. like the ring on his finger gives him a right to do that.

but it’s what he wants. would have wanted. wants.   
and jim knows what else he _wants._ wants , because he’s not gone yet. wants, because he could still open his goddamn eyes.

jim picks up jo, careful not to wake her, takes her and david back to the social worker’s office. mccoy won’t want her to see this. he won’t want the last memory of her father to be of him dying.

* * *

one of the doctors finds jim outside. one of mccoy’s doctors. the one he doesn’t hate quite as much as the talking one. she’s crying, looks almost as bad as he does. he sits down next to her, stares at the cars in the parking lot for a good five minutes.

he doesn’t know what to say. not to her, not to joanna, not to mccoy. and he wishes, more than anything, that he could be in that bed instead. leave jo her daddy. leave david someone who knows what he’s doing. but mccoy’s made this decision, once before. it’s jim’s turn. he can’t put mccoy through that again.

jim doesn’t know what to say, but he has to talk anyways.

so he does. he’s always been good at that. at worming his way out of things, into things. not out of this — but he does, at least, know what it’s like. to screw up. to crack under pressure. to have people die on your watch. because you weren’t good enough.

“he’d have understood.”

it’s the wrong thing to say. her face scrunches, and he has to look away, can’t look back until she’s got her sobs under control.

“i’m so sorry,” she starts, and he knows what’s coming already. “i couldn’t save him. it was my job to save him and i didn’t. i couldn’t. i _failed._ i wasn’t good enough.”

“yeah. you did.” jim shuts his eyes. he can see len when he does. sees him smiling when they brought david home the first time. sees him sprawled across the floor, playing checkers with jo. he wonders how long that’ll last. how long until he forgets all the different ways mccoy smiles, how his voice lilts when he says _darlin’_ , how his eyes light up whenever jim walks in the room? how long until he’s gone? “you gave up your right to do that when you decided that this was the job you wanted. you don’t get to fail. not when it’s someone else’s life in your hands. you’re going to live with this for the rest of your life. you’re going to remember his face and that he had a family. that’s going to make you better. every time you remember him, you are going to work harder. you are going to be better. you won’t be able to let this happen again. you lost him, so you’re going to take that. you’re going to use that. you’re gonna save someone else because of this. someone you would’ve lost, if you hadn’t lost him. he would’ve wanted that. would’ve wanted to know that he died for something.”

and then he gets up and walks away.

* * *

jim leaves the kids—their kids—with the social worker. he hands a stack of papers to a nurse. she pulls the blinds. it’s that easy to end your husband’s life.

they’ve encountered enough alternate realities in their travels. he thinks that, if he’s lucky, he’ll wake up tomorrow morning in one where this never happened.

jim’s never been lucky. he’s just smart and a fast talker.

“we’re going to begin now,” says the nurse, and jim realizes he doesn’t know her name. he asks, but won’t remember it in an hour.

he sits on the side of the bed, slides a hand into leonard’s, and, one by one, the machines power down. the beeping and electronic glow that’ve filled the room since he got here fade. the nurse reaches for the ventilator, and jim can’t, can’t, can’t—

“wait!” he shouts, then pleads, “wait.”

so she does.

he has to try.

has to give mccoy a chance.

“bones,” he mumbles. then, louder, “leonard. _bones.”

he’s stopped trying to wipe his tears, by now. they’re sliding down his cheeks, soaking his shirt. he presses a hand to mccoy’s face, careful not to brush against any of his cuts or bruises, just in case he can still feel.

“please.”

and there’s nothing. and so he knows.

“it’s okay,” jim whispers, lowering himself to lay beside mccoy, wrapping an arm around his middle. this is the last time he’ll hold him. the last time.

“it’s okay.” he says, because he has to let him know. he can’t let him worry. “you go. we’ll be fine. i’ve got this, bones, okay? go. you can. it’s okay. i’ll take care of us.”

“are you ready?” the nurse asks.

“no,” jim says, “but do it anyways.”

she steps forward, removes the ventilator, unhooks the rest of what’s attached to mccoy. then she leaves.

mccoy breathes on his own for forty-seven minutes. jim spends them telling him about jo’s first day of middle school, of high school, about moving her into college. he tells him about david’s wedding, and how he goes to med school just like his dad, and how jo ends up captain of a starship, and how her first kid looks just like len, but acts like jim, and how jim misses him every day for the rest of his life but knows that len’s there, watching, with them for all the stuff that’s important and all the stuff that’s not.

he tells len he loves him. tells him he wouldn’t change any of it, any of them, even if it meant never having to feel like this.

he tells him thanks for throwing up on him. says that’s when he decided to stick around.

and then he tells him goodbye.

* * *

jo’s coloring in waiting room when jim finds her. he goes to her immediately, picks her up, holds her until she squirms to be put down.

“where’s daddy?” jo asks. she already knows something’s wrong. she’s always been good at that, at picking up when her parents are upset, but she doesn’t look sad. a little scared, but not sad. “is he here?”

jim’s heart shatters all over again. even as he wonders if he’ll ever be able to put it back together again, he knows that he has to. david’s too young to remember any of this, but jo’s not, so he has to do it for her. has to show her that it’s okay to be okay again. he kneels. he needs to be on eye level with her for this.

“remember daddy was driving to the shuttle? in his car?”

“yeah. “ jo nods. she doesn’t understand. not yet. “is he coming home soon?”

“no.” _kindly._ “he was in an accident, sweetheart.”

“oh.” she takes that well enough. doesn’t know loss, yet. can’t connect her worry to anything real. “well, is he hurt?”

“he was.”

“are the doctors fixing him? is he going to surgery?” and that’s all she’s known, so far. two dads and a mom who love her. all of them save people. mccoy the doctor, jim the captain, joss the lawyer. they fix. they help. but not today.

“no. they can’t fix him.”

that doesn’t scare jo either.

“then you should go in there and save him. you save everyone. you’re the captain of the uss enterprise.” she says it like it’s an honor. like he hasn’t lost his ship, his crew. like he can do anything.

“jo, i can’t fix him.” he gives her that sad little smile, blue eyes brimming with tears again.

“why?”

and he has to tell her. and he has to protect her. and he can’t see how those two things fit together. but he has to. so he does.

“i can’t fix him, jo.” he takes her hands in his, squeezes, tight. “daddy— daddy died, joanna. daddy died.”

jo cries, then. jim does, too.

* * *

**1 new voicemail: Leonard McCoy**

> _hey, jim, it’s me. i just wanted to call and say that i miss you, i guess. i wish you were coming with me. all of you. i know it’s just a weekend, and we’ve done this for longer before, but we shouldn’t have to, is the point. not anymore. anyways — i love you, jim. i love our family. and we’re gonna keep doing this. us. i’ll see you when i get home._


End file.
